CHAPTER VIII
THE MARCHES LEAVE GARLAND'S
It was on a Wednesday morning that Mr. March and Long Billy set out for Rosita. The next week, on Thursday evening, just at sunset, Mrs. March heard the sound of wheels, and, looking up, saw a white-topped wagon, drawn by two mules, coming up the road. In the next instant, she saw Rob and Nelly running, jumping, and clapping their hands, and trying to climb up into the wagon.
"Why, that must be Mr. March," she exclaimed, and ran out of the door.
"Why, that's queer," said the Deacon, following slowly; "he said he'd write the day before he was a-comin'; and we were to go down 'n' meet him at the Springs."
"And if he hasn't brought that long-geared fellow back with him, I declare!" continued the Deacon, as he walked on: "I'd like to know what's up now."
Mrs. March had already reached the wagon, and was welcoming her husband. Long Billy interrupted her greetings.
"Well, mum," he said, "I s'pose you're surprised to see me back again. But me 'n' him"—nodding to Mr. March—"'s struck up a kind o' 'liance, an' I'm to your service now: me 'n' my mules."
"I know what that means," thought Mrs. March: "we're going to move down to that valley, post haste." But all she said was:—
"Very well, Billy; I'm glad to see you. Mr. March's friends are always mine."
"What are you going to do with that Long Legs, Parson?" said Deacon Plummer, as soon as he found a chance to speak to Mr. March alone; "seems to me we haven't got work for another hand: have we?"
"Not on this farm: that's a clear case, Deacon," replied Mr. March; "but it's too long a story to enter on now. After supper I'll tell you my plans."
The Deacon took out his red silk handkerchief, and rubbed his forehead.
"Oh, Lord!" said he to himself; "what's that blessed man been and done now? He ain't noways fit to go off by himself. I'll bet he's been took in worse 'n ever."
After supper Mr. March told his story. He had bought a farm in the Wet Mountain Valley, and he proposed that they should all move down there immediately. The place had more than equalled all Long Billy's descriptions of it; and Mr. March's enthusiasm was unbounded. Deacon Plummer listened to all his statements with a perplexed and incredulous face.
"Did you see that medder grass's high's a man's knee?" he asked.
"Waded in it, Deacon," replied Mr. March; "but that isn't all: I've got a wisp of it in my pocket."
Long Billy chuckled, as Mr. March drew the crumpled green wisp out of his pocket, and handed it to the Deacon.
"'Twas I put him up to bringin' that," said Billy. "Sez I, 'there ain't nothin' so good for folks's seein' with their own eyes.' I kind o' misgave that the old man wouldn't be for believin' it all."
The Deacon unfolded the grass; back and forth, back and forth, he bent it, and straightened it out across his knees. He looked at it in silence for a minute; then he said:—
"Well, that beats me! Acres like this, you say?"
"Miles, Deacon," said Mr. March.
"Miles 'n' miles," said Billy; "'s fur's you can see it wavin' in the wind; 't looks like wheat, only puttier. P'raps you'd better show him the wheat now?"
Mr. March pulled out of his other pocket a similar wisp of wheat, and handed it to the Deacon. This he straightened out, as he had the grass, across his knees, and looked at it in silence for a moment; then he tasted the kernel; then he rolled up both wheat and grass together, and handed them back to Mr. March, saying:
"I've got nothin' more to say. Seein' 's believin'."
Long Billy nodded his head triumphantly, and winked at Mr. March.
"But," continued the Deacon, "for all that I don't feel it clear in my mind about our goin'. 'Twouldn't make any difference to ye, Parson, anyway, if Elizy 'n' I didn't go; would it?"
Mr. March was much surprised.
"Why, Deacon!" he said, "we should be very sorry to have you separate from us. You surely can't stay on in this place!"
"Oh, no!" replied the Deacon; "we hain't the least idea o' that. The fact is, I expect we ought to go home: Elizy's so poorly. We've been thinkin' on't for some time. But we was so kind o' settled here, and all so home-like, we hated to stir. But if you're goin' to break up, and go to a new place, I expect we'd better take that time to go home."
This was not wholly a surprise to Mr. and Mrs. March, for they had themselves felt that old Mrs. Plummer would after all be better off in her comfortable home in Mayfield. They saw that she was growing slowly more feeble: the climate did not suit her.
"I reckon we're kind o' old for this country," said the Deacon. "It don't seem to me's I feel quite so fust-rate's I did at home. Trees gets too old to transplant after a while."
"That's so! that's so!" exclaimed Billy. "I've never yet seen the fust time, old folks adoin' well here. The air's too bracin' for 'em. They can't get used to it,—no offence to you, sir,"—looking at Deacon Plummer.
"Oh, no offence,—no offence at all," replied the Deacon. "I don't make any bones about ownin' that I'm old. Me 'n' my wife's both seen our best days; 'n' I reckon we're best off at home. I think we'd better go, Parson. We're mighty sorry to leave you; but when you move south, we'll start the other way towards home. Ain't that so, Elizy?" Mrs. Plummer had been rocking violently for the last few minutes, with her face buried in her handkerchief.
"Yes," she sobbed, "I expect so. It's just providential, the hull on't."
"Dear Mrs. Plummer, do not cry so!" exclaimed Mrs. March. "We have had a very pleasant time. It is only a few months; and when you get home, it will only seem as if you had taken a six months' journey. I really think you will be better in Mayfield than here."
"Oh, I've no doubt on't," said Mrs. Plummer, still crying in her handkerchief; "but I thought we was a goin' to live with you all the rest o' our lives. It's a awful disappointment to me. But it's all providential. It's a comfort to know that."
When Zeb heard the news that the family would break up in a few days,—the Marches to move to Wet Mountain Valley, and the Plummers to go back to Massachusetts,—he was very sorry. He turned on his heel without saying a word, and went into the barn.
"Just your luck, Abe Mack!" he said, under his breath; "you don't no sooner get used to a place 'n' to folks, 'n' feel real contented, than somethin' happens to tip ye out. Ye're born onlucky; I reckon there's no use fightin'. They're so took up with this long-legged spindle of a mule-driver I expect they won't want me; 'n' I don't want to go down into no minin' country, nuther,—'taint safe. I'll see if the old man won't take me back to the States. I've got enough to pay my way, if he'll give me work after I get there, and I reckon I'd be safe from any o' them Georgetown fellers in Massachusetts."
The Deacon was very glad to take Zeb back with him. He had learned to like the man, and he needed such a hand on his farm.
And so it was all settled, and everybody went to work as hard as possible to get ready for the move. Nelly and Rob hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry. They loved the hills so much, they were afraid they would not love the valley so well. Yet their heads were nearly turned by Long Billy's stories of the wonderful mines in Rosita; of the machinery in the stamp-mill where they crushed the ore and got the silver out; of the delicious wild grapes on Grape Creek; and the trout, and the flowers on the hills.
"Yer hain't ever seen any flowers yet," said Billy, when Nelly tried to tell him how many flowers grew in the Pass; "ye jest wait till I take ye up on Pine's ranch, some Sunday. I'll show ye flowers then: sixty odd kinds in one field,—yes, sure! I counted 'em; and old Pine he counted em too. And he sent 'em off by express once, some of each kind, to the folks at Washington. You'll see!"
Just three weeks from the day Long Billy first drove into the shadow of the old saw-mill to camp, the March and Plummer family set out on their journeys: Fox and Pumpkinseed drawing one big white-topped wagon, in which were Mrs. March, Deacon and Mrs. Plummer, Nelly and Rob. Billy's two mules drew the other big wagon, which was loaded down very heavily with the furniture Mr. March had bought. Mr. March drove this; and Billy, mounted on a new horse which he had bought, was driving all the cattle before him. Zeb sat by Mr. March's side in the mule wagon. He and Deacon and Mrs. Plummer were to take the cars at Colorado Springs, and go to Denver. Mr. and Mrs. March had begged them to come down with them into Wet Mountain Valley, and make a visit. But the Deacon said "No."
"The fact is," he said, "I may's well own it: now that we're really started for home, we're dreadful homesick. I didn't know's I had felt it so much. Can't transplant old trees, Parson, no use! It's a good country for young folks,—a good country; I shall tell the boys about it. But give me old Massachusetts. I just hanker after a sight o' the old buryin'-ground, 'n' that black elder-bush in the corner on't."
When they parted at the little railroad station in Colorado Springs, Mrs. Plummer broke down and cried. Nelly cried a little too, from sympathy; and even Watch whined, seeing that something unusual and uncomfortable was going on. Luckily, however, good-bys at railway stations always are cut short. The engine-bell rings, and the cars move off, and that puts an end to the last words. Mr. and Mrs. March were sorry to part from these good old people; and yet, if the whole truth were told, it must be owned that they felt a sense of relief when they were gone. They had felt, all the while, a responsibility for their comfort, and a fear lest they should be taken ill, which had been burdensome.
"We shall miss them: shan't we?" said Mrs. March, as the train moved off.
"Yes," said Nelly; "I'm real sorry they're gone. I like Zeb too."
"We'll miss the crullers," said Rob. "Say, mamma, didn't she show you how to make 'em?"
"Rob," said his father, "you ought to be a Chinese."
"Why?" asked Rob.
"Because they think the seat of all life is in the stomach; and they give great honor to people with very big stomachs," answered his father.
Rob did not know whether his father were laughing at him or not. He suspected he might be.
"I don't know what you mean, papa," he said: "you like crullers, anyhow."
"Fair hit, Rob!" said Mrs. March. "Fair hit, papa!"
The journey to Rosita took six days: they had to go very slowly on account of the cattle. The weather was perfect; and every night they slept on the ground, in a tent which Mr. March had bought in Colorado Springs. Rob rode on Pumpkinseed's back a good part of the way, like a little postilion. Before the end of the journey, they were all so burnt by the sun that they looked, Mrs. March said, "a great deal more like Indians than like white people." They drove into Rosita just at sunset. I wish I could tell you how beautiful the whole place looked to them. You go down a steep hill, just as you come into the town of Rosita. On the top of this hill, Mr. March called out to his wife to stop. She was driving Fox and Pumpkinseed; and he was following behind with the mules. He jumped out, and came up to the side of her wagon.
"There, Sarah!" he said, "did you ever see any thing in your life so beautiful as this?"
Mrs. March did not speak; both she and Nelly and even Rob were struck dumb by the beauty of the picture. They looked right down into the little village. It was cuddled in the ravine as if it had gone to sleep there. The sides of the hills were dotted with pine-trees; and most of the little houses were built of bright yellow pine boards: they shone in the sun. Just beyond the village they could see a bit of a most beautiful green valley; and, beyond that, great high mountains, half covered with snow.
"That is the valley," said Mr. March; "that bit of bright green, way down there to the west."
Nelly was the first to speak.
"Papa," said she, "it looks just like a beautiful green bottom to a deep well: doesn't it?"
"Yes, this little bit that you see of it from here, does," said Mr. March: "but, after you get into it, it doesn't look so. It is thirty miles long; and so level you would think you were on the plains. And oh, Nell! you can see your dear Pike's Peak grandly there! It looks twice as high here as it does from any place I have seen it."
"Oh, I'm so glad!" said Nelly.
Still Mrs. March did not speak. Her husband turned to her at last, anxiously, and said:—
"Don't you like it, Sarah?"
"Oh, Robert!" she said, "it is so beautiful it doesn't look to me like a real place. It looks like a painted picture!"
"That'll do! that'll do!" laughed Mr. March; "I'm satisfied. Now we'll go down the hill."
Rob nudged Nelly. They were on the back seat of the wagon.
"Nell," he whispered, "did you ever see any thing like it? I see lots of silver mines all round on the hills. Billy told me how they looked. Those piles of stones are all on top of mines; that's where they throw out the stones. I'll bet we'll find a mine."
"Oh," said Nelly, "wouldn't that be splendid! Let's go out the first thing to-morrow morning."
Mr. March had planned to stay in Rosita a couple of days, before going down to his farm in the valley. He wished to become acquainted with some of the Rosita tradesmen, and to find out all about the best ways of doing things in this new life. Long Billy proved a good helper now. Everybody in Rosita knew Long Billy and liked him; and, when he said to his friends, confidentially:
"This is a first-rate feller I've hired with: he does the square thing by everybody, I tell you. There's nothin' narrer about him; he's the least like a parson of any parson ye ever see,"—they accepted Billy's word for it all, and met Mr. March with a friendliness which would not usually have been shown to a newcomer.
The next morning after they reached Rosita, Long Billy proposed to take Mr. March out and introduce him to some of the people he knew. When Mr. March came downstairs, he was dressed in a good suit of black, and wore a white collar; on the journey, he had worn his rough working-clothes, and a flannel shirt. Long Billy looked him up and down, from head to foot, with an expression of great dissatisfaction; but did not say anything. Then he walked out on the piazza of the hotel, and stood still for some minutes, in deep thought. Then he said to himself:—
"Hang it all! I'll have to speak to him. What'd he want to go 'n' spruce hisself all up like that for? 'T'll jest ruin him in this town, oncet for all! I'll have to speak to him. I'd rather be scotch-wolloped."
What scotch-wolloped means I do not know: but it was a favorite expression of Long Billy's. So he walked back into the hotel, and beckoned Mr. March out on the piazza.
"Look here, Parson," he said, speaking very fast, and looking very much embarrassed,—which was an odd thing for Billy,—"look here, Parson, you ain't goin' to preach to-day, be yer?"
"Why, no, Billy," said Mr. March; "why did you ask?"
"Ain't these yer preachin' clo'es?" replied Billy, pointing to the black coat.
Mr. March laughed.
"Why, yes, I have preached in them, Billy; but I do not expect ever to again. I must wear them out, though."
"Not in these parts, Parson," said Billy, solemnly, shaking his head. "Yer don't know minin' towns so well's I do. Ef I was to take you down town in that rig, there wouldn't one o' the fellers open his head to yer. They'd shet up jest like snappin' turtles. Ye jest go upstairs 'n' put on the clo'es ye allers wears won't ye?" said Billy, almost pleadingly.
"Why, certainly, Billy, if you really think it would make any difference about my making friends with the people. I don't want to offend anybody. These are pretty old clothes, though, Billy, if they only knew it. It was to save my others that I put them on. But I'll change them, if you say so." And Mr. March ran upstairs much amused. When he came down in his rough suit and his blue flannel shirt, Billy smiled with pleasure.
"There," he said, "you look like a man in them clo'es, Parson. Excuse my bein' so free; but I allers did think that the parsons' clo'es had a good deal to do with fellers despisin' 'em's they do. They allers call 'em 'Tender-feet.'"
"Tender-feet!" exclaimed Mr. March; "what does that mean, Billy?"
Billy did not answer immediately. He was puzzled to think of any definition of "Tender-feet."
"Well," he said at last, "don'no' as I can say exactly what it does mean; but 'tain't because I don't know. Any feller that's over-particular about his clo'es, 'n' his way o' livin', 'n' can't rough it like the generality o' folks in Colorado, gets called a 'Tender-foot'! Lord, I'd rather be called a thief, any day!"
Mr. March laughed heartily.
"I see! I see!" he said. "Well now, Billy, you don't think there'd be any danger of my ever being called a 'Tender-foot' do you?"
"Not a bit of it, Parson," said Billy, emphatically, "when a feller came to live with yer; but to see yer jest a walkin' round in them black clo'es o' yourn, you'd get took for one. Yer would: that's a fact. I should take yer for one myself. Yer may's well give that suit up, oncet for all, Parson, for this country, I tell ye," added Billy, thinking he would make sure that the danger did not occur again. "Thet is," he continued, "except Sundays. I don't suppose 'twould do ye any harm to be seen in it Sundays, or to a dance."
"I don't go to dances, Billy," said Mr. March; "perhaps I'll give the suit away: that'll save all trouble."
As they left the hotel, they saw Rob and Nelly walking hand in hand up the steep road down which they had come the night before, entering the village.
"Where can the children be going?" said Mr. March. "Rob! Nelly!" he called. They both turned and said:
"What, papa?" but did not come towards him.
"Where are you going?" he said.
"Oh, only a little way up this road," replied Rob.
"Don't you want to come with me?" said Mr. March. The children hesitated.
"Do you want us, papa?" said Nelly.
"Why, no, certainly not," replied Mr. March, "unless you want to come. I thought you would like to see the town: that's all."
"We'd rather go up on the hill, papa," said Rob. "Mamma said we might, if we wouldn't go out of sight of the hotel. Good-by!"
"Good-by, papa!" called Nelly. And they both trudged off with a most business-like air.
Long Billy laughed.
"Them youngsters got silver on the brain," he said. "Thet's what's the matter with them. I've seen plenty o' grown folks jest the same way in this country: a walkin', walkin' by the month to a time, a pokin' into every hole, 'n' a hammerin' every stone,—jest wild after gold 'n' silver. There's plenty on 'em's jest wasted time enough on't to ha' made a considerable money, if they'd stuck to some kind o' regular work. That little chap o' yourn, he's a driver; he hain't never let go the idee of findin' a silver mine, sence the day they hauled all them mica stuns down, back there'n the Pass. They're a rare couple, he 'n' Nelly: they are."
"Yes, they are good children," said Mr. March: "good children; but I don't want them to get possessed with this desire for money." And he looked anxiously up the hill, where he could see Rob and Nelly striking off from the road, and picking their way across the rough ground towards a great pile of gray ore, which had been thrown out of one of the mines.
Long Billy also looked up at them.
"The little sarpents!" he said. "They're a makin' for the Pocahontas mine, straight. Rob, he was askin' me all about the piles o' ore 'n' the engines in the mines, yesterday."
"Is there any danger of their being hurt?" said Mr. March.
"Oh, no! I reckon not. That Nelly, she's jest the same's a grown woman. I allers notice her a holdin' the little feller back. She won't go into any resky places no more'n her ma would. She's got a heap o' sense, that little gal has."
While Mr. March and the children were away, Mrs. March sat at the west window of her room, looking off into the beautiful valley. I wish I could make you see just how it looked from her window; however, no picture can show it, and I suppose no words can tell it; but if you really want to try to imagine how it looked just ask somebody who is with you while you are reading this page, to explain to you how high a thousand feet would seem to you. If you can see the spire of the church, and can know just how high that is, that will help you get an idea of a thousand feet. Then you can imagine that you are looking off between two high hills, right down into a bit of green valley one thousand feet lower down than you are. Then try to imagine that this bit of green valley looked very small; and that, beyond it, there were grand high mountains, half covered with snow. The lower half of the mountains looked blue: on a sunny day, mountains always look blue in the distance; and the upper half was dazzling white. This is the best I can do towards making you see the picture which Mrs. March saw as she sat at her western window. After all, I think Nelly's sentence was worth more than all mine, when she said, "Oh, papa, it looks like a beautiful green bottom to a deep well." The picture was so beautiful that Mrs. March did not want to do anything but sit and look at it, and when her husband returned from his walk in the village, she was really astonished to find that she had sat at the window two whole hours without moving. The children did not come home until noon. Their faces were red and their eyes shone with excitement: they had had a fine time; they had rambled on from one mine to another on the hill; wherever they saw a pile of the gray ore, and a yellow pine building near it, they had gone into the building and looked into the shaft down which the miners went into the ground. They had found kind men everywhere who had answered all their questions; and Rob had both his pockets full of pieces of stone with beautiful colors, like a peacock's neck. Rob had forgotten the name of the stone: so had Nelly.
"It sounded something like prophets," said Nelly, "but it couldn't have been that"; she handed a bit of the stone to Long Billy.
"Oh," said he, glancing at it carelessly, "that's nothing but pyrites; that's no account; they'll give you all you want of that."
"I don't care:" said Rob, "it's splendid. I'm going to make a museum, and I shall have the shelves full of it. But, mamma," he said sadly, "there isn't any use in our looking for a mine. When I told one of the men that we were going to see if we couldn't find a mine, he just laughed, and he said that every inch of the ground all round here belonged to people that thought they'd got mines. All those little bits of piles of stones, with just a stick stuck up by them, every one of those means that a man's been digging there to find silver; and they're just as thick! why, you can't go ten steps without coming on one! They call them 'claims.'"
"That's so," said Long Billy; "and I'll tell ye what I call 'em. I call 'em gravestones, them little sticks stuck up on stone heaps: that's what most on 'em are, graves where some poor feller's buried a lot o' hope and some money."
Nelly turned her great dark eyes full on Long Billy when he said this. Her face grew very sad: she understood exactly what he meant. Rob did not understand. He looked only puzzled.
"Graves!" exclaimed he. "Why, what do you call them graves for, Billy? There isn't any thing buried in them."
Billy looked a little ashamed of his speech; he did not often indulge in anything so much like a flight of fancy as this.
"Oh, nothin'!" he said. "That's only a silly way o' puttin' it."
"I don't think so, Billy," said Nelly. "I think it's real true. Don't you know, Rob, how awfully you and I felt when we thought we'd found that mine up in the Pass, and it turned out nothing but mica? We felt just as if we'd lost something."
"I didn't," said Rob; "I just felt mad; and it makes me feel mad now to think of it: how we lugged those heavy old stones all that way. I wish I'd saved some for my museum though. All the boys here have museums, a man told me, and perhaps I won't find any of that kind of stone here."
After dinner, they all drove down into the valley to look at their new home. The road wound down in a zigzag way among a great many low hills. Sometimes for quite a distance among these hills, you cannot see the valley at all; and then all of a sudden you look right out into it. As they went lower, they saw more and more of it, until at last they reached it and came out on the level ground, where they could look up and down the whole length of the valley. Long Billy was driving them: when they reached the spot where the whole valley lay in full view, he stopped the horses and, turning round to Mrs. March, said:—
"Well, mum, did I tell the truth or not?"
"No, Billy, you did not," replied Mrs. March, very gravely.
Billy looked surprised, and was just about to speak when Mrs. March continued:—
"You did not tell half how beautiful it is."
"Ah!" said Billy. "Well, that kind o' lie I don't mind bein' charged with."
"Oh, papa! let me get out!" cried Nelly. "I want to walk in this grass. Is this our grass?"
The road was winding along between two fields of high grass, which waved in the wind. As it waved, Nelly saw bright red and blue flowers among it; some tall, and some low down close to the ground as if they were hiding.
"Yes, this is where our land begins," said her father; "this is our own grass: but I don't want you to run in it; we must mow it next week."
"Oh, let us, papa; just a little bit—close to the fence. You can spare a little bit of hay," pleaded Nelly; "we'll step light."
"Do let them, Robert," said Mrs. March. "I should like to do it myself."
"Very well: keep close to the fence, then," said Mr. March, and reined up the horses. Rob and Nelly jumped out, and had clambered over the fence in a second, and waded into the grass. It was nearly up to their shoulders, and they looked very pretty moving about in it, picking the flowers. As Mrs. March was watching them, she suddenly saw a brown bird with yellow breast fly out of the grass, and perch on one of the fence-posts.
"Oh, don't stir, children! don't stir!" she cried: "see that bird!"
Rob and Nelly stood perfectly still. And what do you think that bird did?—opened his mouth and sang the most exquisite song you ever heard. The canary bird's song is not half so sweet. The bird was not ten steps away from the carriage or from the children: there he sat, looking first at one and then at the other, like a tame bird. In a few seconds he sang again: then he spread his wings and flew a little way into the field, and alighted on a tall, slender grass stalk, and there he sat, swinging to and fro on the grass, and sang again; then he flew away. Nobody drew a long breath till he had gone.
"That's a lark," said Billy; "this country's full on 'em; they're the tamest birds for a wild bird I ever see. They'll sing to ye right under your feet."
"Well, he's a glorious chorister," said Mr. March.
"If he's a chorister, I'd like to go where he keeps his choir," said Rob. "I mean to catch one, and have him to sing in my museum."
"Oh, no, Rob," said Nelly; "don't!"
"They won't never sing in cages," said Billy. "I've seen it tried many a time. They jest walk, walk, walk up and down, up and down in the cage the hull time, and beat their wings. They can't stand bein' shut up, for all they're so tame actin' while they're free."
The children climbed back into the wagon now, with their hands full of flowers; and Billy whipped up the horses.
"Git up, Pumpkinseed! git up, Fox!" he said: "there's a crib o' corn ahead for you."
Very soon the new home came in sight. It looked, when they first saw it, as if it were half buried in green grass; but, as they came nearer, they saw that the enclosure in which the house and barns stood was entirely bare of grass. This gave it a naked and barren look which was not pleasing, and disappointed Mrs. March very much. However, she said nothing; only thought to herself "I'll have green grass up to that very doorstep, before another year's out."
The house was very much like the one they had lived in, in the Ute Pass, except that it was larger; there were three log-cabin barns, two of which were very large; and a queer-shaped log-house, bigger at the top than at the bottom, standing up quite a distance from the ground, on posts. This was for wheat. Then there were two dog-houses, and a great place built round with palings, to keep hens in; and one or two large open sheds where wagons and carts stood. Billy looked round on all these buildings with great pride.
"I declare," said he, "there ain't such a ranch's this in all the valley. What a dumb fool that Wilson was to go 'n' leave it. He's put all he's worth, except this farm, into a mine up in Central; 'n' now he'll go 'n' put the money for this in too, and's like's not he'll never see a dollar on't again's long's he lives'. This minin' jest crazes folks."
"Did ye ever see a puttier farm'n this, mum?" he asked, turning to Mrs. March.
Mrs. March could not say that she had not. To her eye, accustomed to Massachusetts green yards, shaded by elms and maples, this little group of rough houses and sheds, standing up quite a distance from the ground, on posts, few tufts of coarse grass, and weeds growing around it, was very unsightly. But she did not want to say this; so she said:—
"It is much the nicest place I have seen in Colorado, Billy; and this valley is perfectly beautiful. But where is the creek?"
"Right there, mum, just a few rods beyond that fence to the west,—where you see that line of bushes."
"I don't see any water," said Nelly.
"No, you can't till yer come right on it," said Billy; "'tain't very wide here, 'n' it jest slips along in the bushes 's if it was trying to hide itself."
"Papa," whispered Nelly, "doesn't Billy say queer things about things, just as if every thing was alive, and had feelings as we do? I like it."
Mr. March smiled, and took Nelly's hand in his.
"Girlie," he said, "Billy's a little of a poet, in his rough way."
"He doesn't make verses: does he?" asked Nelly, reverentially. To make verses had always been the height of Nelly's ambition, as many a little roll of scribbled paper in her desk would show. But there was one great trouble with Nelly's verses thus far: she never could find any words that rhymed; and now to hear Billy called a poet seemed very strange to her.
"I never should have thought he could make verses," she continued.
"Oh! making verses is the smallest part of being a poet, Nellie," said Mr. March. "You can't understand that yet; but you will some day."
Then they all went into the house, and looked at room after room, thinking what they would do with each. The rooms were sunny and bright, but were so dirty that Mrs. March groaned.
"Oh, how shall we ever get this place clean?"
"I'll tell you," said Billy. "If ye don't mind the expense o' stayin' at the hotel a week, an' if ye'll buy me a little paint, I'll have this hull place so ye won't know it, in a week's time. There's nothin' I can't turn my hand to; an' I'd like to fix things up here for you, first rate. I saw up 't the other place about how you like things."
Billy had a quick eye for everything that was pretty. He had never seen any house in Colorado which was so cosey and pretty as the Marches' house in the Ute Pass; and he was thinking now in his heart how he would like to make this new one as pretty as that.
"Mebbe you couldn't trust me," he said, seeing that Mrs. March hesitated.
"Oh, yes, I could, Billy," she replied; "I have no doubt you could put it all in beautiful order. I was thinking whether we ought to stay"—she was going to say, "stay a whole week at the hotel"—but, just at that minute, there came piercing shrieks in Rob's voice:
"Papa! papa! Billy; come! come!"
The shrieks came from the direction of the creek.
"Oh, my God! he's fallen into the creek!" cried Mrs. March, as she tried to run towards the spot. Long Billy dashed past her, with his great strides, and said, as he passed:—
"Don't be skeered, mum; in the mud, most likely."
The cries came feebler and feebler, and stopped altogether,—then a loud burst of laughter from Billy, which brought the life back to Mrs. March. She was clinging to the fence, nearly senseless with terror; Nelly stood close by, her face white, and tears rolling down her cheeks: when they heard Billy's laugh, they looked at each other in amazement and relief.
"He can't be in the creek, mamma," said Nelly: "Billy wouldn't laugh."
Then they heard Mr. March laugh, and say:—
"Hold on, Rob: don't be frightened; we'll get a rail."
Then Billy came striding back out of the bushes, still laughing. When he saw Mrs. March's and Nelly's agonized faces, his own sobered instantly.
"'Twas too bad, mum," he exclaimed, "to give ye such a skeer. He's in the slough, thet's all; he's putty well in, too; he'll be a sight to see when we get him fished out. He's in putty well nigh up to his arms."
Mrs. March could not help laughing; but Nelly only cried the more.
"Poor dear Rob!" she said: "how he will feel!" And she began to climb the fence.
"Oh, Lor'! don't any more on ye come over here," cried Billy: "it's all we can do to get round. The creek's overflowed: 'n' it's all quakin' tussocks here; that's the way he went in, a jumpin' from one to another."
While Billy was speaking he was tearing off two of the top rails from the fence. He seemed to be as strong as a giant. In a very few minutes, he had two rails over his shoulder, and had plunged back among the bushes. In a few minutes more, out they all came; Rob being led between Mr. March and Billy. He was indeed, as Billy had said he would be, "a sight to behold." Up to his very arms he was plastered with black, slimy mud.
"Oh, mamma, it smells horrid," was his first remark. "I wouldn't mind if it didn't smell so."
Nelly ran up as close to him as she dared.
"Oh, Rob," she said, "how could you go in such a place! Why didn't you stay with us?"
"I wanted to see if there were any grapes yet," said Rob; "and you couldn't have told yourself, Nell, that it wouldn't bear. Ugh! What'll I do, mamma?"
"I'm sure I don't know, Rob," said Mrs. March: she was at her wits' end. She looked helplessly at Billy: Billy was rubbing his left cheek with his right forefinger,—his invariable gesture when he was perplexed. Mr. March also stood looking at Rob with a despairing face.
"I wish you wouldn't all look so at me," cried Rob, half crying: "it's horrid to be stared at. What'll I do, mamma?"
It was indeed a dilemma. Rob's trousers and jacket were dripping wet, and coated thick with the muddy slime; his shoes were full of it; as he walked about it made a gurgling noise, and spurted up; his face was spattered with it; his hands were black; even his hair had not escaped.
"There's lots o' hay in the barn," said Billy; "we might rub a good deal off on him with that. Me 'n' you'd better take him," said Billy, nodding to Mr. March. "No, mum, ye stay where ye be; we'll manage better without ye, this time," continued Billy, waving Mrs. March back, as she set out to follow them.
Poor Rob looked back, as Billy led him off towards the barn; the tears ran down in the mud on his cheeks, and made little white tracks all the way.
"I think you're real mean to laugh, mamma," he said.
Mrs. March was sorry to hurt his feelings, but she could not help laughing. Nelly did not laugh, however: she looked almost as wretched as Rob did. It seemed an age before any one came back from the barn. Then Mr. March and Billy came out alone: Mr. March carried Rob's trousers on a stick, and Billy carried the jacket and stockings and shoes.
"Why, what have you done with the child!" exclaimed Mrs. March: "he will take cold, without any clothes on."
Mr. March's eyes twinkled.
"Well, he has some clothes on, such as they are," he said. "Billy raised a contribution for him: my under-drawers and vest, and Billy's coat; he's all rolled up in the hay, and you'd better go and sit by him now."
Mrs. March and Nelly hurried in. There lay Rob, all buried up in hay: only his face to be seen. He looked very jolly now, and said he felt perfectly comfortable.
"Now tell me a story, mamma! tell me a story. You've got to tell me stories as long as I stay here."
So Mrs. March sat down on one side, and Nelly on the other, and Mrs. March told them the story of the Master Thief, out of the Brothers Grimm's "Fairy Stories of All Lands"; and, just as she got to where the Master Thief was planning to steal the bottom sheet from off the king's bed, she looked up and saw that Rob was fast asleep.
"Oh, that's good," she said; "that's the best thing that could have happened to him. Now we'll go out and look at the house again."
"But, mamma," said Nelly, "I think I'll stay here. If he should wake up, he would feel so lonely here; and he can't get out of the hay."
"Thank you, dear: that is very kind of you," replied Mrs. March. And, as she went out of the barn, she said to herself, "What a kind, thoughtful child Nelly is. She really is like a little woman."
Mrs. March could not find her husband and Billy anywhere; so she sat down on the door-step of the house to wait for them. She looked up and down the beautiful valley: it seemed a great deal more than thirty miles long. The mountains at the south end of it looked blue and hazy; the great Sangre di Christo Mountains, which made the western wall, looked very near; the snow on them shone so brightly it dazzled Mrs. March's eyes to look at it. After a time, she got up from the door-step and walked round to the north side of the house.
"Oh, there is Nelly's mountain!" she said. There stood Pike's Peak, in full sight, to the northeast. It looked so grand and so high at first, Mrs. March did not know it. This, too, had a great deal of snow on it, and there were white clouds floating round the top; it was the grandest sight in the whole view. There were no other houses near; she could see only a few in the valley; and she could not see Rosita at all. The road down which they had come seemed to end very soon among the hills.
"We shall not have much more to do with neighbors here than in the Pass," thought Mrs. March. "But I do not care for that. One could never be lonely with these mountains to look at."
"Well, mum, here's the little feller's clo'es," said Billy, coming up at this moment, with Rob's clothes hanging in a limp wet bundle over his arm. "Now I'll jest make a rousin' fire back here, 'n' you'll be astonished to see how quick they'll dry. I've washed 'em in about five hundred waters,—that medder mud's the meanest stuff to stick ye ever see,—but they'll be dry in no time now."
"Mamma!" called Nelly, from the barn; "Rob's awake. He wants to get up: he says he won't lie here another minute."
"I'll show him his clo'es," said Billy. "I guess that'll convince him," and Billy carried the wet bundle into the barn. Shouts of laughter followed, and in a minute more Billy came out again, shaking all over with laughter. "I jest offered 'em to him," said he, "'n' told him he could get up 'n' put 'em on ef he wanted to; but I rayther thought he'd better let 'em dry some fust."
"What did he say?" asked Mrs. March.
"He wanted to know how long it would take 'em to dry 'n' I told him the best part of an hour; 'twill be some longer'n that, but I couldn't pretend to be exact to a minnit, 'n' he laid back on the hay 'n' sez he: 'You tell my mamma to come right here 'n' finish that story she was a tellin'."
When Mrs. March went back into the barn, she shouted aloud as soon as she saw Rob. He had crawled out of his hay bed. It was too warm: there he sat bolt upright, with his legs straight out in front of him. Nelly had drawn the white drawer legs out to their full length, and set Rob's shoes, toes up, in the hay at the end of them, so it looked as if his legs were all that length; then Mr. March's gray waistcoat came down nearly to his knees, and Billy's old brown coat hung on his shoulders as loosely as a blanket. He looked up at his mother with a perfectly grave face, and did not speak. Nelly was laughing hard. "Isn't he too funny, mamma?" said she.
"You can laugh now if you want to, mamma," said Rob politely. "I don't mind your laughing at papa's drawers and waistcoat and Billy's old coat. That's quite different from laughing at me."
"Thank you, dear," said Mrs. March: "you're very kind; but I can get along very comfortably without laughing at you now. You're not half so funny as you were when you were covered with the mud."
It took so long to dry Rob's clothes, that it was nearly dark when they got back to Rosita.
"Well, I reckoned you liked your house so well you weren't coming back to us at all," said the landlord, as they drove up.
"Oh, no, sir," cried Rob, "that wasn't it. I fell into the mud by the creek: I always fall into the water each new place we go to. I did it the first thing up in the Pass."
The landlord looked closely at him. "What! you been into the creek in them clothes?"
"Billy washed them," said Nelly; "they were all black as mud."
"Oh!" said the landlord. "Well, there ain't any thing under Heaven that Long Billy can't do: that's certain."
Mr. and Mrs. March thought so too, when one week later they drove down to take possession of their home. Billy had pleaded so earnestly to be allowed to do all the work himself that Mr. March had consented; and had even promised him that they would not come near the house until he invited them. Then Billy set to work in good earnest, and Miss Lucinda Harkiss set to work with him. This was the young woman to whom Billy was engaged. She was coming to be Mrs. March's servant. A very good time Lucinda and Billy had all that week. It was almost like going to housekeeping together for themselves. The first day Lucinda swept and scrubbed the floors, and washed the windows till they shone; then Billy stained all the floors dark brown, and painted the window-sashes and the door-frames brown; and this brown color was so pretty with the yellow of the pine, that it made the rough boarded rooms look almost handsome. While the paint was drying, Lucinda and Billy drove over to Pine's ranch at the foot of one of the Sangre di Christo mountains. They knew old Mr. Pine very well; and he was very glad to have them make him a visit. All one day Billy worked hard digging up young pine-trees, and Lucinda gathered a great quantity of kinnikinnick vines. Billy had told her how Mrs. March had had them nailed up on the walls in the other house. The next day they drove home early in the morning, and in the afternoon Billy set out a row of the little pine-trees all round the house. "Even if they don't grow, they'll look green for a spell," he said to Lucinda; "an' ye never see a woman hanker arter green stuff's Miss March does. There wan't a livin' thing growin' in the Ute Pass, but what she had it in a pitcher or a tumbler or a tin can, a settin' round in her house. And as for that Nelly, she'd bring in her arms full o' flowers every day o' her life. You'll like 'em all, Lucinda, see if you don't. They ain't like most o' the folks out here."
Lucinda had a good many fears about coming to live with Mrs. March. She had never been a servant; but she wanted to be married to Billy as much as he wanted to be married to her, and she thought if she could earn good wages and lay all the money up, they could be married sooner.
"I shall like them well enough, I dare say," said Lucinda; "but I don't know how I'll stand being ordered round."
"Ordered round!" said Billy, in a scornful tone. "I tell you they ain't the orderin' round kind; they're the reel genuwine fust-class folks; an' genuwine fust-class folks don't never order nobody to do nothing: I tell you I shouldn't stand no orderin' any more'n you would. Mr. March he always sez to me, 'We'd better do so and so,' if there's anything he wants done; 'n' he works 's hard as I do, any day, 'n' Miss March she's jest like him. You'll see how 'twill be. I ain't a mite afeared."
After the paint was dry, they nailed up the vines; and Billy added to them some pine boughs with great clusters of green cones on them which were beautiful. Then they unpacked the boxes of furniture; and Billy showed Lucinda how to put up the chintz curtains in the sitting-room, and the white ones in the bedrooms, and, when it was all done, it looked so pretty that Billy could not help saying:—
"Don't you wish it was our house, Luce?" He always called her Luce for short. "Can't take time for no three-storied names 'n this country," said Billy; "two's too many."
Lucinda blushed a little, and said:—
"We can make ours just as pretty some day, Billy."
"That's so, Luce," said Billy: "you'll get lots o' idees out o' Miss March. She's what I call a reel home-y woman. I hain't never seen nobody I've took to so since I left hum."
When everything was ready, the house and the barns and sheds all in order, and the whole enclosure raked over and made as tidy as possible, Billy said:—
"Now, we'll jest keep 'em waitn' one more day. You make up a lot o' your best bread, and churn some butter; 'n' I'll go over to Pine's and pick two or three gallons o' raspberries. They're just ripe to pick now, 'n' this is the last chance I'll get. Then you 'n' Miss March can preserve 'em. I know she wants some. I heard her say so when we was a comin' up Hardscrabble Canyon."
Something besides raspberries Billy brought back from Pine's ranch that night,—something that he never dreamed of getting, something which pleased him so greatly he fairly snapped his fingers with delight,—it was a little pet fawn. "Old-man Pine" had had it for several months; it had strayed down out of the woods, when it was too young to find its way back; he had found it early one morning lapping milk out of the milk-pan he kept outside his cabin-door for his dog Spotty. He had caught it without difficulty, and tamed it, so that it followed him about like a puppy. Sometimes it would disappear for a few days, but always came back again. It was a lovely little creature, almost white under its belly, and on the under side of its legs; but all the rest of a beautiful bright red. When Billy told old Mr. Pine about the March family, and about the twin brother and sister, who were such nice children, the old man said:—
"Don't you think they'd like to have the fawn? It's a pesky little thing, for all it's so pretty, an' I'm tired on't. There was a man offered me seven dollars for it, a while ago, but I thought I didn't want to let it go; but ye may have it for them children if ye want it. Ye can tell 'em I sent it to 'em; an' I'm the oldest settler in this valley, tell 'em. Yer must bring 'em over to see me some time."
Billy promised to do so.
"They'll go clean out o' their heads when they see the critter," he added. "They've been a talkin' about deer ever since they come: deer an' silver are the two things they're full of. They've pretty near walked their little feet off by this time, I expect, lookin' fur a mine. They took the idee's soon's they see the wagon-load o' ore I was haulin' through the Ute Pass: that's when I fust knew 'em; an' I declare to you, the youngsters hain't never let go on't, 'n' I dunno's they ever will."
"Mebbe, then, they'll find a mine yet," said old Pine. "There's one o' the best mines in all Californy was found by a little feller not more'n ten years old. He jest hauled up a bush with solid gold a stickin' in the roots.
"You don't say so!" said Billy. "Well, there ain't no such free gold's that in this country; but I wouldn't like any thing much better, next to findin' a mine myself, than to have Mr. March's folks find one. They're the sort o' folks ought to have money."
Billy worked very late that night fencing a little bit of the green meadow nearest the house, to keep the fawn in. The little creature seemed shy and frightened; and, when Billy drove away in the morning to bring the family down, he charged Lucinda to go out often and speak to it and feed it with sugar.
"I'd like to have it get over its scare before Nelly sees it," he said; "for, if it don't seem to be happy, she's just the gal to go on the sly and let the critter out, so it could go where it wants to."
Billy was much disappointed, when he reached the hotel, to learn that Mr. and Mrs. March and the children were out. They had gone to one of the mines, and would not be back till dinner-time; for they were going down into the mine.
"I never see any thing in all my life like that little chap," said the landlord. "He don't rest a minute. I believe he 'n' his sister have walked over every foot o' ground within five miles o' this house; 'n' there ain't a workin' mine in all these gulches that he don't know by name; 'n' he'll tell you who's the foreman 'n' how many workmen are on; 'n' he's got about a wheelbarrow full o' specimens o' one sort 'n' another, for his museum, 's he calls it. The little girl she seems a kind o' nurse to him, she's so steady; but they say they're twins: you wouldn't ever think it."
"No, that you wouldn't," replied Billy; "but they are. I like the gal best myself. She don't say much; but there ain't nothin' escapes her, 'n' she's just the sweetest-tempered little thing that was ever born. She's too good: that's the worst on't. I don't like to see youngsters always doin' right; 't don't look healthy."
Poor Lucinda's nice dinner was almost spoiled,—it had to wait so long before the family came. Billy had not once thought of the possibility of his not finding them at home, and had called out to Lucinda, as he drove off:—
"Now, mind, Luce, you have all ready at one, sharp. We'll be here before that time."
So, when Billy drove into the yard, at half-past two o'clock, he felt quite crestfallen, and half afraid to see Lucinda's face in the doorway. But she smiled pleasantly, and only said:—
"How punctual you are, to be sure! Dinner won't be very good."
"Never mind, Lucinda," said Mrs. March. "We were not at home. It wasn't Billy's fault. He has been worrying about you for an hour. It will taste very good to us all, for we are hungry."
Mrs. March praised every thing in the house, till Billy's face and Lucinda's grew red with pleasure; and Mr. March also praised everything out of doors.
"Didn't I tell you, Luce," said Billy, at the first chance he found to whisper in her ear, "didn't I tell you they was nice folks to work for? They don't let you slave yourself to death for 'em like some folks, 'n' never say so much 's a thank you."
The delight of Rob and Nelly in the fawn was greater than could be told in words. They ran round and round the enclosure, to see it upon all sides; they fed it, till it would not eat another mouthful; they stood still, gazing at it with almost unbelief in their faces.
"Oh, is it really our own? Will it always stay?" they cried. "It is too good to be true."
I don't believe there was in all Colorado a happier family than went to sleep under Mr. March's roof that night. Everybody was entirely satisfied with the home and with everybody in it. Even Watch and Trotter sat in the low-arched doors of their new houses, and held their heads up, and looked around them with an air of contentment and pride. They had never had houses of their own before. They had slept on the great pile of sawdust by the old mill; but they walked straight into these little houses and took possession of them as naturally as possible. They almost made you think of people who, when they come into possession of things much finer than they have been accustomed to, try very hard to act as if they had had them all their lives.